Subway Collective are currently working towards a re-united style gig performing a handful of their classic tracks for a summer event in Manchester with Lisa Jamesdaughter. Keep your eyes out for details to be announced....

Technical Editor Hugh Robjohns and Editor In Chief Paul White discuss highlights from the December issue of the magazine, with this month's Studio SOS recipient Olivia
Broadfield. Features Editor Sam Inglis gives the low-down on the two new
plug-in formats: ARA and Avid's ARX.
Reader questions this month:
* Will iOS apps kill modern synth manufacture? (Asked by @subwaysounds via Twitter)
* Which music-editing programs are available cheaply/free on a PC for beginners? (Asked by Kieran Lews via Facebook)
* What is clock jitter and why does it matter? (Asked at the college Q&A)
* Should I buy a Mac or PC to make my music? (Asked at the college Q&A)

Tempest was first seem at NAMM at the start of the year and generated a huge interest due to the collaboration of music tech’s founding fathers Dave Smith and Roger Linn. As a big fan of both parties I was excited to see what the guys could come up with. The machine utilizes six analogue synth voices and an innovative performance-oriented operating system that means beats can be manipulated in real time without ever stopping. This is the first product ever to carry the logo’s of both Dave and Roger companies. Could this be a killer team with a potentially strong future as a partnership? And will this be the drum machine to beat all drum machines… check out the video and decide for yourself… all that’s needed now is an IOS version and life will be complete..

Will IOS apps kill modern synth manufacture?

As
most people in the know realise, apps are changing the way musicians,
remixers and producers are thinking about music. Good or bad this will
inevitably change the landscape of modern music technology.

Back
in the days when VST Instruments first surfaced, often needing decent
processing power creativity was somewhat hampered by poor emulation and
lack of hands on capability. However the iPad, iPhone and Andriod
hardware are becoming serious considerations for modern musicians. They
are portable for one, creativity is quick and limitless and with the
open structure IOS and iTunes accessability, this is encouraging smaller
developers to create IOS musical apps that are innovative, inexpensive
and immediate. Results while experimental, at prices of under £20 for a
pro app and as little as 69p or free for trial versions of musical
sketchpad apps they seem worth a punt for the credit crunch savvy
purchaser.

Recent additions to the app store such as
songwriters app NanoStudio from blipinteractive and synth geeks dream
analogue synth emulation app from Korg - the IMS-20, are providing DAW's
and emulators that are getting scarily close to their Mac or PC
contemporaries and for a fraction of the price. With this revolution in
portable music creation tools hardware manufactures will have to ship
up or ship out. For many synth manufacturers this is a real concern.

The
investment into a hardware synth is massive - from R&D, through
hardware design development through to storeage, warehousing and
distribution manufacturers these days are having to produce machine that
are more multi facetted and less of a risk to ensure sales. This could
see some manufacturers moving with the technology to embrace a more
immediate and new sales / revenue streams while others may see their
manufacturing facilitys closing their doors. Either way its an
interesting time for both professional and more casual creators.

However
what will this mean for the music industry itself? Will the market be
flooded with more bedroom musicians than ever? Will allowing more
people to be creative and to easily produce near studio quality music
without much investment be a good thing?

That is open
for debate. It does suggests however that there is a huge market shift
in how accessible music creation will be in the future, that can only be
a good thing.

For information on last years news including Subway Collectives official remixes for Yazoo through Mute records, their project studio build or press interviews please click on the archive at the top of the page or on any of the pictures below.